A big ebook shoe dropped on Sunday. It dropped on Kobo first. And it has nothing to do with Borders.
Kobo just delivered a new iOS (that’s Apple’s operating system for iPad and iPhone) app that no longer contains the direct link to the Kobo bookstore within it. That means that buying new Kobo books requires going to Kobo.com through the browser (not hard, but additional steps) rather than from a single click from within the app.
Later news on this developing story is that the Google app has been “pulled” and that the Nook Children’s app no longer has a link to the store. We have to expect that the Kindle and main Nook apps will undergo the same change very shortly. That will mean that the simplest and most seamless way to buy and read ebooks on the iPad or iPhone will be through Apple’s iBookstore. It will almost certainly mean a growth in iBookstore market share at the expense of all the other ebook retailers. It will also almost certainly mean that a lot of people who read their ebooks on an iOS device (I’m one of them) and prefer to use any of the other ebook retailers (and I’m one of those too) will be inconvenienced and annoyed.
However, it is also true that Apple will benefit from this move that many of their customers will resent.
Full blog post:
So?
If publishers don’t like it they can choose not to sell via the IOS platform. They do want to sell to those customers so they are adapting for them.
Not a massive shock.
Only thing missing is someone saying piracy is going to rocket as it’s easier to illegally download books than to come out of an app and log onto a website to get an ebook.
Learn to read
The “so” of the article can be found after the line “What this means depends very much on where you sit.”
Sidestepping Apple
Sidestepping Apple: From Amazon to Condé Nast, Companies Rethink App Strategies
We all knew that once Apple starting enforcing new rules for in-app purchases, it would change how media companies do business on the iPhone and iPad. Now, we’re beginning to see just what that looks like for companies trying to avoid giving a 30 percent cut to Cupertino.
Amazon, Kobo and Barnes & Noble all removed the stores from their iOS applications on Monday, as well as any hyperlinks to or mentions of their online stores. Google Books — recently announced distribution and retail partner for the new multiplatform Harry Potter e-books — is simply gone from the App Store, without explanation from either Apple or Google, although possibly a revised app may be forthcoming.
http://bit.ly/qAKK4T